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Saturday, February 25, 2012

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you'll leave a comment. This snippet of April's Kiss in the Moonlight, a sweet contemporary romance, has never been shared before:

The horse began trotting immediately, then broke into a canter as she neared the woods. The wind cooled Gavin’s skin as they flew past trees . He gripped April firmly about the waist and felt the way she tightened her thighs to hang on. She moved her body to the rhythm of the horse and Gavin. Together the three of them became one. Gavin experienced the zing of excitement as he realized April was no longer afraid of the horse. The speed at which they rode through the field was exhilarating. But as Venus neared the woods, she slowed to a trot and then a walk.
Gavin led them along his favorite trail through the woods. The easy silence between them was broken only by the steady scuffle of Venus’s footfalls and the subtle song of a chickadee. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the forest where there was a break in the trees. April shivered as they rode through the shade and Gavin realized she was dressed for the sun. He pulled her back into his chest where the heat from his body would warm her. She relaxed, moving with the horse, undulating easily with each step Venus took. April loosened her grip on Gavin’s arm and he flexed his fingers. A small smile broke out on her face as April filled her lungs with fresh air and the scent of the horse mixed with Gavin’s pine soap in her nostrils."You’ve got a good seat, there," he said.
"I beg your pardon?" April craned her neck, trying to have eye contact with him.
"Means you sit a horse well, April. I’m not commenting on your butt . . . though it looks pretty good, too," he said and then laughed.
"I’ve got a lot to learn," she chuckled.
"You can say that again!"
She elbowed him in the ribs and laughed.
"Don’t you dare tickle me or we’ll both go sliding off!" she wailed.
He wanted to pull back, to distance himself from her but her sweet scent and her body pressed up against his fought his resolve. He leaned down and let his lips brush her neck softly.
"Springtime," he whispered to himself.
"What? What did you say?"
"Nothing," he replied.

Fresh from graduate school, April McKenna, beautiful and brilliant vows to strike out on a new path rather than return to San Francisco to take a job with her father’s firm. She meets Rusty and sets off for an escapade that ends in tragedy. Injured and alone she is taken in by Sunny Davis, a friend of her mother’s who lives in a small town in the Catskill Mountains in New York.

During her recovery, April resolves to carve out an exotic life of travel and adventure. But she didn’t count on a sexy fireman upsetting her plans. Gavin Dailey has dated practically every woman in the county, but when he meets April, he knows he’s finally found the one he wants. Only a stubborn man like Gavin wouldn’t let April’s resistance to his charm and his small town change his plans. Determined to win her, he pulls out all the stops until he encounters one stumbling block he didn’t count on. Only a near-tragedy resurrected from the past gives April the tenacity she needs to make the right decision for her life in April’s Kiss in the Moonlight.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

We are interviewing Dakota, the heroic collie, from the Emily Dahill, CID mysteries by Lindsay Downs. Dakota is a collie and Emily's right hand helper in mystery solving.

1.Are you upset your name is not in the title?

Upset doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. Furious would be a better word. I’m just as smart as Emily, actually in some instances smarter. I can hear when someone is approaching silently and my nose can out smell that little thing between her eyes and mouth. I’m also brave, trustworthy, loyal (as long as there’s a steak for me at the end of the day). Even though Dakota, the wonder collie, isn’t in the title-hold it, that is a little long and might cover my magnificent picture on the cover. Thinking about it that way, yeah she can have her name in the series title.

2.Do you have any annoying habits your author did not share with us in your book?

I’m not the one with the annoying habits. Emily is with her insistence on drinking that horrible black stuff when she gets up in the morning. Makes me want to gag even thinking about it.

3.Do you have siblings? Are you close to them?

I’ve got 2 brothers, Nibs and Patches along with three sisters: Roxy, Zoey and Maddie. Right now I’m closer to Patches and Roxy as they live in the the US. Patches lives on the here Army base with his partner Mary Todd, while Roxy and Jenna Janson, her partner, live in DC.

The other; Nibs lives in England while Zoey and Maddie are overseas in locales that I can’t disclose as they are with Special Ops Army units

4.Any hobbies we might be interested in knowing about?

Does chasing squirrels count as a hobby?

5.Are you happy with the profession your author chose for you or would you rather be working at something totally different and why?

Are you kidding me? Being part of one of the best investigative teams in the Army is something that can’t be beat. I wouldn’t trade jobs for all the sirloin steaks in the world, now if you offered me bone-in porterhouse steaks it might be a different matter. Seriously, though I’ve got the best partner and job going.

6.Are you planning to make an appearance in a sequel? If not are you unhappy about that?

I’ve been in all the books and from what Lindsay tells me I’ll be in the rest. I should point out that in the 2011 Christmas story, A Dog Gone Christmas, I wasn’t the main collie. That position went to my mom, Kebi.

7.Now for a personal question. Is there enough sex in the book for you? Would you have liked more?

You might be surprised but there’s no sex in the books, which works for me. I blush easily. You might, when Emily and her boyfriend get together, see kissing but I’m usually there to make sure it doesn’t go any farther. If they try, as they have to do the nasty, I step in. This is one of the lessons mom instilled in all us kids. If we don’t like the other person we make sure it never happens and that has saved, at least with Emily on more than one occasion, heartbreak.

8.Are you happy with the setting? Did you want a bigger house or car?

I live in the greatest house going. It’s the right size for me and Emily. There’s even a spare bedroom when her dad or Jarrod sleeps over. The backyard is fenced in, not so much to keep me in but some of the forest creatures, squirrels excluded, out. Just about nothing will keep those pesky animals from burying their acorns on top of my hidden bone stash.

Oh, and living nearby is a real cool wolf mom and her cubs. We hang together a lot especially during hunting season to keep people for shooting our animal friends.

Oh, I almost forget, Emily has the neatest 1969 Chevy pickup but my favorite is her rebuilt, all original parts WWII Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I’ve even got my own little side thingie I sit in and the coolest goggles to protect my eyes.

9.How many re-writes did you have to live through?

If I’m lucky I usually only have to deal with 3-4 rewrites per story but it’s my editors that have the hardest time understanding me. I mean, really who hasn’t heard of Collie POV. It’s just like the others, except I don’t talk and you get to see all the cool things I can do.

10.Did you get enough time in the story or do you feel shortchanged?

Let me ask you this Jean, can the hero ever get enough time? The amount isn’t exactly equal but one of these days I know Lindsay will give me more time than Emily. It’s just a matter of waiting and having, as I love to say, the patience of a Saint Bernard.

11.Who was your favorite supporting character?

Emily, oh wait, she’s the heroine so I guess she can’t be a supporting character even though on many occasions I do support her in an investigation. I really don’t have a favorite one. I mean the team members are all great people and wouldn’t want to even try to single one out.

12.Were you happy with your wardrobe?

What wardrobe? I have fur. Do you mean the dog collars I wear? Well my favorite is the round leather one since it doesn’t bind on my mane. If I do say so, I cut a dashing figure in the CID vest Emily had specially made for me.

13.Did you fight much with your author or did you two see eye-to-eye?

The only way we see eye-to-eye is when either I get up on my hind legs with my front paws on Lindsay’s shoulders or when Lindsay comes down to my level. But, no we don’t fight much. If we do I win. Teeth beat brains any day.

Emily Dahill, CID Part 1

Final Mission-After being seriously wounded in a copter crash in Iraq Sgt. Emily Dahill meets her new partner as she embarks on her new Army career as a CID agent. Who could this new partner be?

A Body in the Snow- Emily and her partner, Dakota, cross bullets with their most determined foe. Who will survive?

Right Place, Wrong Day-On leave to hang with friends Emily gets the surprise of her life.

Dog on Fishing-When it comes to knowing how to fish, and catch the big ones, never underestimate your partner. He might surprise you.

A Dog Gone Christmas

When a call for paws goes out, five friends bring their collies without question to a friend’s house. They learn the collies are needed to help seven children with the grief of losing a parent in Iraq or Afghanistan. Now, with seven friends, four collie yearlings and their mother, they set out to help the children

Not far away a mother hopefully leads her seven puppies to safety from a man intent on selling them for illicit purposes.

By a miracle of fate the two mother collies find each other right before the man sells the puppies.

That Christmas morning will be one the children will remember all their lives and they are united with the puppies.

A Body in the Attic

Special Agent Emily Dahill, Dakota along with her team of technicians are sent to Master Sergeant Annabelle Carlyle’s Victorian style house for what they think is a simple break-in. What they find however, turns out to be even more ominous and far reaching.

A secret passageway leads to a mysterious gunshot. When the prime suspect is cleared they still have no clue who the shooter is, or why. Could the shooter be the same individual who took a shot at Dakota?

Add into the mix the FBI and their unexpected involvement in the case.

Soon they learn the break-in had been a cover-up for a more nefarious crime. One that involves Emily’s nemesis, the brown-haired man, and millions of dollars being sent to terrorists.

Will they solve the case before the money disappears forever and more bodies turn up? Not even the inestimable Dakota is sure.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Last week we learned that Kit had been dumped by her husband of twelve years. She has come to Willow Falls where her daughter is in boarding school to break the news of their divorce. After a rough day with her daughter, Kit goes out to her first restaurant dinner alone. This is a picture of the center of downtown Willow Falls.

She had always been a devoted wife and mother, putting Johnny and Zoe before herself; She liked being a wife and mother, she was good at it and had tried to talk Johnny into having another child. But he refused. Now she had no one to care for, to cook for, and to plan for…no one to miss her. She didn’t know where she belonged. She couldn't have felt worse if Johnny had cheated on her. Kit shivered, not due to a cold breeze, it was August, but because she had never felt such gut-wrenching loneliness in her life. The silence surrounding her was deafening. She had no place to go and no one to turn to, except her friend, Sarah. Hunger gripped her belly so she walked into town and went to Bon Appetit, the only restaurant she knew.

****

Don Rosen, the co-owner of Bon Appetit with his wife, Sunny, was tending bar when Kit arrived. (Bon Appetit is on the first floor of this brick building on the right.)

“Good evening. Looking for a table?” he asked Kit.

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Just one,” she said, cringing inside, unable to look him in the eye.

“We have a big group here tonight, so we’re packed. How about sitting at the bar? We serve dinner there, too and I can seat you here right away,” he said, motioning to one of two empty chairs. Kit nodded at him and sat down. She pulled out a small pad and pen. Time to make a what-to-do-with-my-life list.

“What are you drinking?”

“A Cosmopolitan?” she asked.

“Coming right up,” Don said.

Kit sat with her pen poised, but she couldn’t think of anything. How do you make a list for putting your life back together? There were so many things she had to do; Kit stared at the empty page, unable to organize the mess that was her life into a neat to-do list. She felt paralyzed. She took a sip of her Cosmo and put the paper and pen down on the bar.

“Writer’s block?”

She looked to her left and directly into a pair of warm brown eyes looking at her with an amused air. There was a man sitting next to her in the previously empty seat. She didn’t even see him sit down. Kit looked at him but couldn’t find her voice. He was gorgeous with dark brown hair to match his dark eyes, broad shoulders and a wry grin turning up one corner of his sensuous mouth. He wore a white long sleeve shirt open at the neck that emphasized the darkness of his hair and eyes and a blue striped tie, loosened to indicate the end of his work day.

“Is he annoying you?” Don asked her, his eyes twinkling, “Because if he is, I can have him thrown out of here in two seconds. He comes in here every day hitting on pretty, single women and I have to shoo him out of here.”

She gave Don a quizzical look, as if she didn’t understand he was kidding.